


I Want to Fix Whatever's Hurting You Now

by MiloThePsychonaut



Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 11:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11184111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiloThePsychonaut/pseuds/MiloThePsychonaut
Summary: Tweek is ready to step up and be a good boyfriend, but Craig isn't giving him the opportunity.





	I Want to Fix Whatever's Hurting You Now

**Author's Note:**

> Stripe is referred to as "She" in this, mostly to vary the use of pronouns. Before you ask, I have no idea where their families are.

“I’m, _ngh_ , sorry, Craig” Tweek watched his boyfriend shovel snow to the side.  
“It’s not your fault.” Craig said flatly. “It was bound to happen eventually.” He started shoveling dirt onto his pile.  
Tweek bit the skin around his nails. “Do you think she ingested something? What if her carrots were poisoned?! _GAH!_ ”  
Craig shook his head. “Guinea pigs don’t live very long, Stripe was just old.” He straightened up. A small hole was dug in the ground. Craig spent a long time looking at it.  
Tweek reached out and grabbed his hand. Craig squeezed it a little too tightly. “You’re going to, _ngh_ , cut off all the circulation to my fingers!”  
“I’m surprised your blood is even warm enough to move.” Craig stared at Tweek’s single green shirt. It wasn’t even buttoned properly.  
“Youthinkmybloodisn’tmoving?!” Tweek grabbed his hair with his free hand. Craig sighed. Tweek slowly let go of his hair and relaxed his jaw. “S-sorry, Craig. I’ll try to stop worrying so much. You’re probably really sad about this.”  
“It’s fine.” He said, looking up at the sky. Tweek narrowed his eyes.  
“For once, you could try having an emotion.”  
Craig looked at his boyfriend semi-shocked. “What the hell does that mean?”  
“You’re not fine!” Tweek swung his arms down, pulling Craig’s hand down with him.  
“Jesus, Tweek! Why are you so angry at me?” Craig pulled his hand away. He stomped towards the door.  
“ _Geh!_ Where are you going?”  
“I’m going to get Stripe!” Craig slammed the door shut behind him.  
Tweek frowned at the glass door, his hands clenched. When Craig came back he was holding a shoe box. Tweek’s expression softened. Craig looked really upset. He didn’t look up from the box.  
“It’s a shame she couldn’t go out in style.” Craig said wistfully.  
Tweek’s eyes lit up. He grabbed Craig’s face and yelled, “Wait here!” he ran inside.  
Tweek ran up the stairs to Craig’s room. He nearly scraped his knee sliding against the carpet to the bottom shelf on Craig’s desk. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest while he pulled up his pants to check his knee. It was a little red, but not bleeding. He sighed with relief, but didn’t feel relieved. He remembered Craig was waiting for him, and quickly opened the drawer, grabbed some crayons, and ran back down the stairs.  
Outside, Craig was petting the top of the box. He wanted to comfort Stripe, but he didn’t know what she would need comforting from. He closed his eyes, trying to think of something to say to her.  
“Craig!” he turned around. Tweek was holding out a box of crayons.  
“...Thanks” Craig took the crayons and held them awkwardly.  
Tweek angrily gestured to them. “I’m saying we should, _ngh_ , decorate her shoe box!”  
“Oh.” Craig looked at the crayons, then the box, then Tweek. For the first time that day, he smiled, even if it was only for a second.  
They brought Stripe’s shoebox back into the kitchen, and agreed they would each decorate a side. Craig drew a lot of spaceships and a couple portraits of Stripe in all twelve colors. He even added a drawing of him holding Stripe, with red hearts around them. From the other side of the box, Tweek kept whispering about how much pressure drawing was. He mostly drew patterns, realizing only when he was done that he had done the entire side in yellow.  
“ _Geh_ , sorry Craig, this looks really bad.”  
Craig inspected his unsteady lines carefully. Occasionally, there was a huge jump that all but completely destroyed the actual patterns. “You apologize too much,” he said, “It’s great.” Tweek smiled.  
“I like your potatoes.” Tweek pointed at one of Craig’s portraits.  
“It’s Stripe, you fucker.” Craig glared at his boyfriend.  
Tweek grabbed Craig’s sleeve. His eyes were suddenly opened widely. “What if, _ngh_ , what if Stripe was killed by poisoned potatoes?!”  
Craig grabbed his hand, and held it. “Why is everything poisoned to you? I’m the only one who fed her, she was just old.”  
“How old was she?”  
“Eight.”  
“Jesus! Craig, we’reeleven!”  
“Yeah, and we’re humans. We won’t be old until we’re, like, 50.”  
“That’s only twenty-seven years away!” Tweek pulled at his hair again.  
“Not at all close.” Craig looked at him with a slight hint of worry. “Come on,” he picked up the newly pimped-out shoebox. “It’s time for the service.”  
Tweek followed Craig out to the hole he had dug. Craig gingerly put the box in the grave, then took off his hat. They stood there for a few seconds.  
“Well?” Tweek asked.  
“Well what?”  
“Aren’t you going to say a few words?”  
Craig thought about it for a minute. “No.”  
“Damn it, Craig!” Tweek punched his boyfriend’s arm.  
“Ow! What is your deal today?” Craig rubbed his arm and backed away.  
“Why won’t you just let yourself be sad!”  
“Why do you want me to be sad so badly?!”  
“ _Gah!_ Because holding in your emotions is bad!”  
Craig angrily stared at Tweek. He knew he was right, but he didn’t want him to be. Craig refused to look at Tweek, but straightened up and cleared his throat.  
“Stripe, you were the greatest pet I ever had, which wasn’t hard, because you were the only pet I’ve ever had and you were a guinea pig, which is the best kind of animal you could’ve been.” He paused. “You were super cool, even if sometimes you woke me up in the middle of the night for no reason at all.” He paused again. “I hope you have all the carrots and lettuce leaves you could ever want in heaven, and a giant golden exercise wheel.” He paused once more for a much longer time. “The end.”  
Craig put his hat back on and grabbed the shovel again. He silently buried Stripe. Tweek watched, biting the skin around his nails, and nervously hoped Craig wasn’t going to accidentally step into the grave and break his ankle. Or his face. Or his arm. Or everything. When Craig was done, Tweek breathed for the first time in a minute.  
Craig walked past him, all the way to the door.  
“Let’s go.”  
“Go where?” Tweek tensed up.  
“We should clean out her cage and stuff.”  
“Oh, yeah. Okay.”  
Tweek held Craig’s hand as they walked up the stairs. Craig led him into his room and then to his desk. The guinea pig cage looked really sad without Stripe there. Craig opened the cage, took out the food bowl and water bottle, and lifted it up above the garbage next to his desk. Tweek watched him shake the bedding out, then noticed the bottom drawer was still open.  
“Oh! We left your crayons downstairs! I’ll go get them.”  
He carefully walked down the stairs, holding onto the railing. The crayons were laying all over the kitchen table. Tweek gathered them together and placed them back into the pack. He made sure they weren’t in rainbow order, because something about exactly following the picture on the box made him nervous. He carried them up the stairs slowly, watching every step he took carefully.  
When Tweek rounded to corner into Craig’s room, he stopped. Craig was standing unnaturally still in front of Stripe’s cage. Tweek slowly walked up to him, praying that he hadn’t been possessed. He reached out to touch Craig’s shoulder, making the boy jump.  
“ _GAH!_ ” Tweek sprung backwards, dropping the crayon box so he could shield his head.  
“God damn it, it’s OKAY, Tweek!” Craig turned around with his fists balled up. A steady stream of tears rolling down his cheeks.  
“Craig…” Tweek lowered his arms. He reached for Craig’s hand, but he folded his arms. “Oh god, are you okay?”  
“I thought this was what you wanted.” Craig said sarcastically, turning further away. “I finally ‘have an emotion’.” he put Tweek’s words in air quotes.  
Tweek exhaled, slightly aggravated. “Okay, maybe that was a rude thing for me to say.” He walked around to face Craig directly. “But you’re always there for me when I have a problem. Today was finally my chance to be there for you.” Tweek furrowed his brow again, “But I can’t actually help you if don’t, _ngh_ , tell me anything!”  
Craig wiped his eye, still trying to pretend he wasn’t crying. Silence hung over them. Craig sighed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He picked up Stripe’s food bowl. “I guess I just miss her more than I thought I would.”  
Tweek looked at Craig sadly. He thought about what to say next. When he was nervous, Craig always asked him to explain exactly what he was scared about and would talk him through every reason why that wouldn’t happen.  
“What do you miss about her?”  
“Everything” Craig said blankly.  
Tweek rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but what is ‘everything’?”  
Craig put down her food bowl. He walked to the window, looking down at her grave. “She used to squeak every time I brought her something to eat." he played with his fingers. "And I took her out of her cage to watch Red Racer with me. She’d run around on the floor and sometimes all over my back.” He smiled sadly. “And when my sister tried to pick her up, she’d always bite her.” He looked at the empty cage. “I used to nose kiss her every day before school.”  
Tweek cocked his head. “Nose kiss?”  
“Yeah, I always felt bad that she was trapped in her cage for hours while I was at school, so I usually gave her nose kisses before I left.” He had finished crying, but still looked completely dejected.  
Tweek walked over to Craig, who watched him blankly. Tweek grabbed his face. He started shaking and Craig was about to ask what was wrong. Before he could, Tweek slammed their faces together. Their foreheads smacked together, which hurt a lot.  
“What the fuck was THAT?!” Craig asked holding his temple.  
“Ow! Ow ow ow!” Tweek held his face in his hands.  
“Yeah! Headbutting somebody hurts, dumbass!”  
"You're the one being a dumbass!" Tweek screamed into his hands. "I was just trying to make you feel better!"  
Craig stared at him. “If you wanted a nose kiss, you could have just asked.”  
“I, _ngh_ , got nervous…” Tweek said, peeking from behind his fingers.  
Craig shook his head. He walked over to Tweek and pulled his hands off his face. “It’s fine.” They stared at each other for a couple awkward seconds. “Do you… do you want a nose kiss?” Tweek froze up.  
“Wedon’thavetoIjustwantedtotryandhelp!”  
Craig smiled. He leaned in and touched their noses together. Tweek closed his eyes tightly. He could feel his heart beat in his ears. Craig rubbed his nose against Tweek’s. When he pulled away, Tweek opened his eyes slowly. His cheeks were bright red.  
“ _Geh_. Do you feel better now?” Tweek asked cautiously.  
Craig looked out the window again, then back to Tweek. He smiled. “A little.”


End file.
